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The Mac Way To Teach Your Children How To Spell

What’s the best way to teach a child to spell? Combine fun, a Mac, and old fashioned drills. This free Mac app is an excellent way to help your child (or students) learn words while interacting with their Macs.

Master Spell features thousands of words, spoken sentences with a real voice, automatic scoring, and options for kindergarten to 5th graders. Did I mention there’s a free game inside?

Use The Family Mac As A Teaching Machine

When you think about it, your Mac is a literal teaching machine. There are dozens of apps which help students and teachers (to learn and teach), many are free, and most take advantage of your Mac’s advanced technology.

Advanced? Sure. Your Mac can read aloud to students.

Your Mac can track scores, give tests, and interact with students as young as pre-Kindergarten (mine). Master Spell is an app that teaches spelling to primary school age children.

There are nearly 4,000 words included, and you can record your own words and sentences. It keeps track of words on a per-student basis, by teacher (or, parent), and lets the child interact by typing a spoken word.

Think of Master Spell as an informal spelling bee without the audience or the pressure.

Drill Baby, Drill

Master Spell’s interface is simple and straightforward and works on the time honored drill method.

Teachers or parents can choose the student, choose a specific drill (or create a drill), and the student simply does the point and click routine to spell the spoken word in the drill.

There’s also a Test Editor which lists all the words in a specific drill, and lets you record the word using your Mac’s built in microphone.

Wait. There’s more!

Corrections are visible and audible. Trouble words can be saved as tests, and you can record your own words and sentences.

Each student gets a History of their results on a specific test, showing progress toward mastery. When master is complete, Master Spell can print a classy looking Certificate.

Wait. There’s still more!

Master Spell comes with a built-in spelling game—Hangman.

Click on any of the images above for a larger, pop up view of the interface.

Alright. To be honest, I wasn’t all that excited about the built-in Hangman game. I didn’t even know it was in there until my four-year-old Spelling Queen asked me about it

It’s family confession time. Here it comes. I never played Hangman as a child (no Macs back then, no Nintendo, not even Atari), so I felt like a graduate from the Special Ed class.

Fortunately, my two oldest daughters picked it up quickly.

I have a feeling that a Mac version of Scrabble will be a big hit around here.

If you have children or students and spelling is becoming a problem, give Master Spell a try. It’s donation ware. It talks. It remembers. It plays games.

5G? Meh!

About Alexis Kayhill

I'm a 25 year Mac user veteran, writer, photographer, wife, and mommy. I live in sunny San Diego with my husband, four children, two dogs, one mean old cat, and an SUV with a back seat full of beach sand. Read more of my articles here.